The present invention relates generally to roofing membranes.
A roof system generally includes a roof deck that comprises the structural supporting surface of a building extending between the surrounding exterior walls of the building. The roof deck may be constructed from plywood, metal decking or concrete or any other suitable material. Depending upon the construction, the roof deck may extend over the surrounding exterior walls or the roof deck may be exposed short of the exterior walls thereby forming a parapet wall, i.e., a low retaining wall at the edge of the roof deck. If desired, the roof system may also include an insulation barrier formed from polyisocyanarate or any other suitable material applied over the roof deck.
To make the roof deck and building weather resistant, a roofing membrane is installed over the roof deck. One typical way of securing a roofing membrane to a roof deck is to use nails or screws that extend through small metal plates that are manually spaced apart in rows on the roofing membrane. The metal plates are covered by overlapping roofing membranes.
One problem encountered when installing roofing membranes is accounting for the wind uplift forces. The wind uplift forces are not evenly distributed across the roof deck and the perimeter of the roof deck, particularly next to a parapet wall which encounters greater wind uplift forces than are encountered on the other areas of the roof deck. Failure to adequately secure the roofing membrane to the roof deck at the parapet wall or anywhere on the roof deck may cause the roofing membrane to separate from the roof deck and/or parapet wall resulting in roof failure and possible damage to the building structure and building interior.
Another problem with most existing methods of installing roofing membranes is that these methods require manually aligning the securing devices on the roofing membrane. This increases the time and labor cost for the installer.